"I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that..." - Curveball, admitting he lied about Iraq having WMDs, Link

"We're glad that you and your sons are proud." "Thanks for those extra billions, Curveball!"

Any time a person or entity makes a "mistake" that puts extra money (or power) in their pocket, expect them to make that "mistake" again and again and again. "Thanks for the extra billions, Curveball!"

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Rick Santorum, arch-right conservative family values homophobe, and somewhat weird family man as well, has a Google problem.

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Lee Bright, Republican state represenative

from South Carolina, owes over $67,000 in

back taxes to the Palmetto State's department

of revenue. So he has decided to change his

name to 'Les Bright', in a last-ditch attempt

to throw the revenooers off his scent.

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"You know, it's fun to make these equivalences, and I'm sure that Jon Stewart will dutifully dredge up a couple of examples of Code Pink yelling something at Donald Rumsfeld to prove that liberals are just as bad. And liberals will dutifully pull back and be more polite while conservatives will laugh and laugh and laugh. But it's bullshit. - Digby, reacting to an article by Liz Sidoti, about hecklers at CPAC in which she employs the "both sides have hecklers" bullshit LinkDigby is right. Jon Stewart often points out that the Left is "just as bad" as the sons of bitches - but he's wrong.

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Keep his campaign promise, Florida Gov. Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott has rejected $2.4B in federal stimulus money for a high-speed rail connection between Orlando and Tampa, a long dreamed of project for both cities' business leaders.

Scott's decision likely means those dollars will be rerouted to California and other states investing in a high-speed rail network that Obama has likened to the national highway system. Scott had previously said he didn't want the state spending any money on the rail line, which required $280 million in matching funds. But backers of the project have said that the consortiums of companies set to bid on the line had indicated a willingness to put up their own money in return for a contract. At his brief press conference, Scott went into little detail about how he made his decision, referring only generally to his conclusions about the current and future cost of the train. The state has spent about $66 million on engineering for the 84-mile system and was about to issue contracts for another $170 million.

The money now goes to another state, tens of millions are now wasted on work already done, and tens of thousands of construction jobs have evaporated for Florida. It's the Tea Party way, people!

4.) Defend the free exercise of religion and speech by rejecting the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and repealing the Hate Crimes bill passed in 2009.

5.) Support the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and demand that the Obama Administration uphold and defend DOMA.

6.) Reinstate the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and underlying federal law that affirms homosexuality is incompatible with military service.

Note that they are even demanding the repeal of the Hate Crimes Act, which in 2009 added LGBT people to an already existing lengthy list of groups protected on the basis of religion, race, national origin, etc. Focus wants protection against anti-Christian hate crimes, but murdering homos? Glory! Praise His Name!

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"I forget. Am I receiving the Medal of Freedom for coining

the phrase, 'Voodoo Economics', placing Clarence Thomas on

the Supreme Court, pardoning Caspar Weinberger, or putting

up with Barbara all these years?"

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Florida's new tea party governor, Rick Scott, didn't make any friends when he met recently with 20 of Florida's black state legislators.

"…it warms my heart when reporters who openly deny that Islam is violent and constantly promote it get the same kinds of threats of violence I get every day from Muslims. Because now they know how it feels. They aren't so dismissive of the threats when those threats are directed at them, instead of at us little people. And yet they still won't admit that THIS. IS. ISLAM. Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this "revolution" by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about."

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), the man charged with winning back the House for Democrats, told reporters Wednesday that Republicans have made his job easier thanks to their string of controversial abortion bills.

"They haven't focused on revitalizing jobs," he said at the briefing held at Democratic Party headquarters. "They've focused on redefining rape."

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I'm not one to generally condone the practice of "outing"; revealing someone is a closeted homosexual against their wishes. I think it's something a person has to come to grips with and decide for themselves. That said, paraphrasing Julian Assange: I like it when bastards get crushed.

...

But this time, the largest gay blog in the state, and one of the biggest gay blogs in the country, isn't going to stand for it. They're threatening to out family values hypocrites in the state who rail against abortion but secretly have abortions anyway (true story), and who rail against gays but secretly have sex with their male hairdresser instead of their wife (another true story).

...

Good for 'em.

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Scott Walker is the first governor of Wisconsin in 64 years

to not have a college degree. He dropped out of Marquette

with a GPA in the C's. Ah, Idiocracy, thy name is Teabaggery.

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Compassionate conservatives are gonna hate, and yesterday there was something for everyone:

For poor, black mothers who don't breastfeed: Michelle Obama thinks you should get a tax break on equipment that lets you pump milk so you can work and keep feeding your child the food that's shown to help prevent childhood obesity. Michelle Bachmann thinks you should get a lecture on how she was able to breastfeed her five kids without government help.

For brown people in Arizona: It's not enough that your immigration status is getting checked whenever a cop decides to pull you over, now Arizona wants to have hospitals check immigration status. Why? To prevent emergency room abuse, of course, since the designated object of hatred—Latinos—are the only ones who do this:

[...]"but I get calls from doctors and nurses every day that work in the emergency rooms, talking about the abuse. The millions of dollars spent for folks who come in for pregnancy tests, sniffles. They use emergency room services as their primary care physician. When do we stand up for the taxpayers? There's a cost to this. The cost of hundreds of millions of dollars."

For poor people on food stamps in Arizona: A state legislator has introduced a bill that would color food stamp cards bright orange. The stated reason is to "prevent fraud", but the veil comes off pretty quickly:

"If that does concern people that they have a bright orange card, I hope they go get a better education or better jobs and stop using that card," he said.

I didn't see anything aimed specifically at white women, black men and the gays, but that's probably just because I didn't look very hard.

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John Boehner's reaction was swift when the House voted

to kill funding for an expensive jet engine that was to be

built in his congressional district.

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Libyan protesters call for 'day of rage'

Salaam, and a very merry DAY OF RAGE to you! Did you forget to buy your girlfriend something nice for this Day of Rage? (Of course not, because who has a girlfriend?) That's okay, just burn down a police station, in honor of how much you dislike Libya's weirdo sorta-king thingy, Muammar Gaddafi. Yes! Libyan security forces killed two demonstrators yesterday, which is probably why much larger, angrier protests have erupted in four different cities across Libya today. And now Libyans are just cold torchin' police stations and generally not taking shit from anybody. [Al Jazeera]

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We seem to be making baby steps like an Egyptian with a recent surge across the country in protests, but thanks to the bestest, freest press in the world, you wouldn't know it:

Over the years, Milwaukee Labor Press editor Dominique Paul North has covered a "heck of a lot of protests" in Wisconsin. Last summer, a peace rally in Wisconsin's inner city drew about 100 people calling for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan. "There was no media coverage," he says. "I was the only reporter there."

The next day, 40 people attended a tea party event in Wisconsin and every local media outlet was there to cover it. "This is what we've been seeing over the past year. If there's a peace rally or a worker's rights rally, it's ho hum. You might find a reporter or two. The tea party would gather five people on the corner and there would be coverage."

Not only has the political tide shifted so far right that being a Rushthuglibot or anybody that swallows the prepubescent bile that they spew should be considered having a mental illness that should be guaranteed to be covered by Obamacare, which, as everyone knows would mean it's death panel time, motherfuckers, but the corporate media plays right along. Sharia law, bed wetters! Muslim brotherhood!! OOga BOOga!!

Seriously? Do they really think that we are that fucking stupid? Well there are reasons why one would suppose.

Although one would have to watch al Jazeera English to know the answer to know the answer to this game, let's play compare and contrast, via The Rude Pundit

Whereas an Egyptian in Tahrir Square generally says things about how Mubarak has demonstrably repressed the masses of citizens, a teabagger makes sputtering, guttural noises that amount to "Blurgh. Obama. Blurgh," which has about as much of a basis in reality as it does in English syntax and grammar. It's a fascinating phenomenon, one that should probably be studied by linguists, sociologists, and stand-up comedians.

WordMost of us are better than that.We should be walking like Egyptians.